The invention relates to tools having an elongate pen-shaped body through which, in use, an electrically conducting wire is lead from a supply. The wire is carried by the tool to a tip of the tool where the wire emerges and may be used for wiring together manually electrical components mounted on a circuit board. Such a tool is referred to hereinafter as a wiring pen.
In a previously proposed wiring pen, the wire passes through a continuous closed bore in the body from the supply to the tip. When the wire emerging from the tip of the wiring pen breaks, either deliberately or accidentally, it generally does so at the tip. It is a disadvantage of such a previously proposed wiring pen that in order to move the wire forward so that a free end emerges from the tip, the wire must be manually gripped and fed. In addition, a deliberate attempt to break the wire can be frustrated by the breaking effort pulling wire from the supply rather than breaking the wire.